#new Democrat senator Ruben Gallego used campaign funds on numerous occasions to pay for luxury family travel, child care, and a Super Bowl trip with Eric Swalwell since he launched his campaign for Senate in 2023
#arizona
According to FEC records, the Arizona Senator started spending directly after he started campaigning in February 2023 to replace Kyrsten Sinema.
He used donor money to pay for luxury hotels with his wife, theme park vacations, private family flights, and direct payments for babysitting.
Details:
🔷️On February 12, 2023, about 20 days after Gallego announced his Senate bid, he and his wife Sydney attended the Super Bowl at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
🔷️They participated through the “Swallego Victory Fund,” a joint fundraising committee Gallego and Swalwell created in October 2022.
🔷️The committee spent $34,700 on event tickets and $2,715 on a pre-game brunch at The Henry, a luxury restaurant in Phoenix.
🔷️The fund raised $56,505, mostly in the final weeks before the game, then disbursed about $7,643.89 to each man’s personal campaign committees before shutting down January 1, 2025.
🔷️Gallego’s leadership PAC and main campaign committee reimbursed or paid more than $18,000 for childcare since 2019, including:
🔷️Payments to an au pair company.
🔷️A $400 payment to Sydney Gallego’s mother, and
🔷️Multiple instances where Sydney Gallego, the couple’s three children, her mother, and their full-time au pair accompanied the senator on donor-funded trips.
Trips funded by the PAC include:
🔷️A Miami Beach stay at the Loews hotel costing more than $9,000 near Sydney Gallego’s birthday.
🔷️PAC vacations at both Disneyland and Disney World, with nearly $1,500 documented for Disneyland meals and hotels alone (flights not included).
️🔷Family members and the au pair joined.
🔷 A November 2025 stay in a Chicago vacation rental in the Little Village neighborhood costing nearly $1,500
🔷️A St. Barts trip framed as part of a “multi-stop political and fundraising swing” that coincided with Sydney Gallego’s boss’s birthday….and
🔷️At least 13 Washington-to-Phoenix flights for Sydney Gallego and the children in 2025 charged to campaign and PAC accounts.
Associates say that Gallego uses campaign cash to live a luxury lifestyle.
FEC rules allow campaign committees to cover travel, food, events, and childcare when those costs have a political purpose and would not exist without the campaign.
Gallego was once close enough to Swalwell to chair his 2020 presidential campaign.
He later pulled his endorsement after the assault allegations surfaced against Swalwell, saying the friendship had “clouded” his judgment.
An earlier April 2026 report detailed Gallego and Swalwell campaign spending at Puerto Rico resorts around Gallego’s 2021 wedding, but the current disclosures focus on activity since the 2023 Senate launch.
